


The Way We Used to Be

by bedwyrssong



Category: Merrily We Roll Along - Sondheim/Furth
Genre: Angst, Drama, Flashbacks, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4958443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedwyrssong/pseuds/bedwyrssong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charley's rant in the television studio and their subsequent fight has Frank recalling a memory he'd long tried to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Used to Be

Charley was a hothead, a screamer. Those had never been among Frank’s faults, not even when he was young and green. Now, with the polish he’d gained hobnobbing with Gussie’s society friends, he had the self-possession to simply sit there and either stare blankly ahead or smile wryly, whichever the moment dictated, while Charley spouted off word after searing word. Then, after KT stormed off, he laughed—actually _laughed_ , the situation was so absurd.

“That was a real slaughter, Charley. Congratulations.”

“Frank—” Charley began.

“Oh, I think you’ve said enough.” He spoke very calmly, but his head was spinning, the echoes of Charley’s tirade running through his mind. _The rest of us he keeps on hold. Discuss him with my shrink. Franklin Shepard, Inc. Not that kind of close any more. Franklin Shepard, Inc. Going through his checkbook. Care of any bank, USA. Franklin Shepard, Inc._ They weren’t ugly words in themselves, but the way he’d strung them together, the sheer bitterness he’d infused them with.... “I don’t know why anyone would want to so humiliate and betray the guy who is his oldest friend in the world like that. But I do know you’re never going to have the opportunity to do it again. You’re goddamn out of my life, Charley.”

He stood up, throwing his earpiece to the ground.

“I’m sorry —”

An exit sign gleamed at the other end of the studio; he began to make his way towards it. “Oh, you’re sorry, are you? After you publicly mock and ridicule and belittle me when, man, I swear I would lay down my life for you, you’re sor—”

“If you’d just let me —”

“Shut up!” Reaching the area lit by the dull red glow, he paused, looked at the other man one last time. “Charley, all these years I have loved you no matter what you did”—and God, the things he’d put him through—“but I guess because I don’t live my life the way you’d like me to, you had to shoot me down and watch me bleed. Well, I like my life, so please just get the hell out of it.”

As far as he was concerned, that was all that needed to be said. He moved to leave, but then, inevitably, Mary wheeled in, babbling something about getting a drink and talking things over, a readymade solution for a much smaller problem. Gussie followed close on her heels, cooing, talking to him as if he was a small child who had come home from the playground with a splinter in his finger.

Above both women’s voices rose Charley’s shrill, persistent tones, echoing Mary’s suggestion that they ought to go talk.

Well, he’d had enough talking. He’d had enough of the noise. He closed his eyes until their voices died away.

“You know,” he said, drawing himself up as he did when speaking to the press, and making sure to avoid Charley’s gaze, “there’s this tribe in Africa where, when one of its members does something cruel or evil, or betrays them, they never see him again.” His voice caught a little despite himself. “They simply — just never see him. They never talk to him, or look at him, or acknowledge him in any way. For them, he is dead. Absolutely and irrevocably dead.”

It was more than he had planned to say, but he felt the words were true and just.

As he turned once more to leave, he felt Charley’s hand on his shoulder, holding him back. He was sick of Charley holding him back. He shrugged it off, only to have Charley put it back again. Goddamn fool didn’t know when to stop.

“Frank, let me explain what—Can I explain what all that came out of?”

That was enough. He turned then, turned on his oldest friend, hands shaking with fury, and shoved him to the floor. Frank followed, landing nearly on top of him, fist in the air, poised to strike.

And then, by a cruel whim, his memories took him back to a scene he’d long tried to forget, when he’d had Charley pinned to the ground much like this. In his mind, the grey faded from Charley’s curls, his wrinkles smoothed, and the look of fear in his face was replaced by one of playfulness. Instead of the cold hard floor of the studio, they lay atop the shabby carpet of their apartment—their _first_ apartment together, the one they’d shared before they’d experienced anything resembling success, the small cramped space they’d filled with noise and music.

They had been drinking, and the cheap liquor put them each in a spirited mood. Soon they were roughhousing, wrestling on the bed, tumbling onto the floor, laughing like schoolboys.

It was all innocent, trivial fun, until the moment when it wasn’t.

He’d managed to wrestle Charley into submission, and sat straddling him, the fabric of the smaller man's shirt bunched up in his hands.

Charley heaved a deep breath, then smiled, more a smirk than his customary full-fledged grin. “Well,” he asked, “what now?”

And an answer came from somewhere deep within Frank, someplace deeper than thought. His grip on Charley’s shoulders tightened, and he bent down, his lips ghosting over his friend’s. Charley surged to meet him, moaning as they kissed. Frank closed his eyes, tried to pretend it was a girl he was kissing, but it didn’t work. The friction of Charley’s stubble against his was enough to tell him it was a man, but it was the sounds he made that really gave him away, the way his body moved under Frank, the feel of his hand on his back. It was all so uniquely _Charley_. Somehow, despite never having been this close, despite never having touched this way, Frank knew Charley’s every sound, movement, touch.

After some time passed, Frank released Charley’s lips, panting more heavily from their kiss than he had while they were wrestling. He stood, poured himself another glass of whiskey, and didn’t look at his friend.

They never spoke of what happened that night.

“Frank—”

Charley’s voice brought him back to the present, to the cold TV studio, to Mary and Gussie hovering over them. Charley looked so old beneath him, so old and so tired, although not nearly as tired as Frank felt.

He dropped his fist, gave Charley an extra shove so as to make sure he wouldn’t try to follow again, and stood. As he left, Mary rushed to her friend, glaring at Frank accusingly. 

In the lobby, he paused to catch his breath. It was so bright in the near daylight, a shock after the darkness of the studio, and it took him a moment before he realized that they had the goddamn song playing out here. Sinatra, singing “Good Thing Going.” It was damn near ubiquitous, a reminder of the early success he had yet to top, yet today, with Charley’s accusations and apologies ringing in his ears, it was his old friend's voice he imagined obscuring old Blue Eyes’s, singing an earlier lyric that Frank had been fond of, but which had embarrassed Charley for some reason.

 

_What if I loved you too much,_

_Was that such a mistake_

_At the time?_

_You didn’t love me enough—_

_Well, that’s tough,_

_But a break,_

_Not a crime._

 

When Charley used to sing the song, he’d often circled the piano, hand lightly traveling over Frank’s shoulders in what Frank assumed was a casual sign of affection. But now he wondered. How often had Charley thought about that night Frank tried so hard to forget? How much had Frank missed because it was out of rhythm with his own music?

Gussie emerged from the studio mere seconds after he did, a flurry of bosom and fur and flaming red hair. She came up to him, put her arms around him, instantly noticing the song playing and motioning for a confused receptionist to turn it off. Frank had been attracted to her not merely because of her wealth and social standing, but also because she was always so _there_ , so solid and in the present, distracting him from past and future, dreams and memories alike. And yet today she could do nothing for him. Her cooing and purring seemed distant and futile. The song was still playing, and even if it hadn’t been, he would have heard it nonetheless.

“Come on, darling, let’s get out of here,” she said.

“Yes, let’s,” he replied, allowing himself to be dragged along.

 

_We had a good thing going,_

_Going,_

_Gone._

 

**Author's Note:**

> The alternate bridge to "A Good Thing Going" is by Sondheim himself, and can be seen in a scan from his book of lyrics, _Finishing the Hat_.
> 
> [Come say hello on Tumblr!](http://bedwyrssong.tumblr.com/)


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